The Union
by Irish Thorn
Summary: Hermione Granger has a history that she knows nothing about, and isn't unlocked within her until she turns eighteen. Theodore Nott also has a history that he knows nothing about. The two start having dreams of a sexual nature about one another, and what follows is an adventure of epic proportions. Rated M for mature content.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Here is a new story that will ultimately be Theo-mione. I hate to put it so blatantly, but if you thought you had to wait awhile for updates on one of my other stories, you haven't seen anything yet. This will be longer in between updates because I only have a few chapters ready so far. It is a story I've spent over a year researching myths and folklore for, and it will be a very involved plot. I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think because it has taken quite some time already just to prepare for it. Without further ado, I give you chapter one of The Union._

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><p>It was a blustery day, and Hermione Granger was currently navigating the streets of downtown London, swiftly making her way toward the Leaky Cauldron. She was supposed to be meeting her best friends Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley for one last drink before her return to Hogwarts the next day. She'd made Head Girl, little surprise there, but the dynamic duo weren't going to be returning at all. They'd be on their way to begin Auror training the day after tomorrow.<p>

The Muggles on the street didn't even look at her as she disappeared from sight into a door completely invisible to their eyes. She stepped into the first part of the wizarding world that she'd ever seen beyond Professor McGonnagall's small bit of magic when she dropped off her letter of admittance to Hogwarts. It was a bit like coming home for her.

She'd had to modify her parents' memories to hide the fact that they had a child during the great wizarding war, and she had little regrets. That is until after the war when she realized that she couldn't live with herself leaving them in Australia, completely oblivious to the wizarding world. It took nearly two months to reverse the powerful memory charm she'd placed on them, and not once did she get to see anything to do with the wizarding world the entire time. Her parents were now back to living in their old house in London where she'd stayed the last few weeks with them.

She was wearing jeans, a white blouse, neutral suede boots, and matching cap, carrying her beaded handbag. She looked around the pub, taking note of the ever present shady characters sitting alone in the back corners, the musty smell that assaulted her senses and seemed to never go away, and the gruff looking bartender wiping down the grimy bar with an even grimier cloth. It was while she was standing there taking in the familiar old Leaky, that the floo over by the stairs activated and a young man with black hair stepped out.

"Mione!" The boy-who-lived ran over and hugged his best female friend.

"Harry!" They were both grinning like buffoons when a red-head tripped out of the fireplace and landed in a heap on the floor. The two just laughed at their third companion as he struggled to get to his feet. Eventually, Harry took pity on him and gave him a hand up. "Honestly, Ronald! How do you expect to be an Auror when you can't even stand on your own two feet!"

"Nice to see you too, Mione," Ron grumbled as he managed to catch his feet.

"Let's have a pint, yeah?" Harry walked over to the bar and ordered three fire whiskeys and three butterbeers. Hermione picked the least filthy table and the boys followed suit, sitting opposite her. Their drinks floated quickly across the room to be set down before each member of the golden trio. "To new beginnings!" Harry raised his glass of fire whiskey, the other two mimicking this movement.

"To new beginnings!" They chorused together, tossing the drink to the back of their throats. After a few coughs disguised as throat clearing, the three settled in to chit chat.

"Are you excited about being Head Girl, Mione?" Harry was always the one to drive the conversations.

"Of course she's excited, mate! This is all she's wanted since first year!" Ron laughed at his own statement. Hermione looked uncomfortable.

"Well, um, yeah. I guess." She shifted in her seat, taking a sip of her butterbeer to keep from having to look at her friends.

"What does that mean, Mione? You guess?" Harry was a lot more observant than people gave him credit for. He could see right through her.

"It's just that—" Hermione was cut off by the clueless red-head across the table from her.

"What, Mione? Rather be Minister for Magic now?" Ron laughed again. Harry took a moment to wonder why his best friend couldn't see that something was bothering the woman he thought of as a sister. Hermione had stayed by his side throughout the war, even when Ron was so quick to turn his back on the both of them.

"What is it, Mione?" Harry was looking directly at her now, needing to understand what had changed her, as it was clear something had.

"It's just... I'm not sure. I don't feel like myself. Haven't, really, since I turned eighteen." She looked at the wall beside Harry's head. She wanted to see his reaction, but also didn't want to look him in the eye.

"Mione, you turned eighteen while we were on the run." Harry was confused. He must have missed something. Hermione sighed, she was defeated.

"I thought that the stress of the war was what was causing it." She slumped down into her chair.

"Causing what exactly? What have you been feeling?" Harry was starting to pick up on something that Hermione had managed to hide for almost a year now. She tried to laugh it off, thinking that maybe he'd just drop it until she was sure herself what was going on.

"Oh, Harry! Just ignore me! I'm sure it's nothing." She forced a smile, hoping to disarm her best friend from thinking too much. She should have known it wouldn't work.

"Okay, Mione. Whatever you say." Harry drained the rest of his butterbeer and stood to leave. Hermione knew that it was too easy and he would want to talk to her one-on-one without Ron. Soon.

"Well, have fun with your training." She actually succeeded in sounding cheerful, she really was happy for them.

"Will do, Mione. Enjoy your last run at Hogwarts." Harry had a sad, faraway look in his eye at the mention of one place he had ever called home. Hermione was sad for him, but he made his choice and now he had to live with it.

"See you, Mione!" Ron gave her an awkward one-armed hug which she halfheartedly returned before he disappeared through the floo network. Harry smiled once again as he hugged her tightly to him.

"Don't think that this conversation is over," he warned. She actually grinned at that.

"Never thought it was." The two separated and went their own ways; Harry to the Burrow with Ron, and Hermione on a walk through Diagon Alley. It was as good a time as any to pick up her school supplies. With a sigh, she checked her bag before trudging to the back of the pub, tapping a few bricks to open a doorway, and stepping into the wizarding world.

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><p><em>AN: Please Review. This one is going to take some motivation..._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Here is chapter two of The Union. I do have several chapters written, and will update fairly often until I run out of pre-written chapters. Beyond that, I will do my best to write as quickly as possible. Please let me know what you think!_

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><p>Theodore Nott was bored. He hadn't wanted to come to Diagon Alley, but some of his friends wanted to come and, deciding that he needed some school supplies, he decided to tag along. He was currently standing outside of Quality Qudditch Supplies, waiting for his friends to finish drooling over the latest Galaxy 5000 broomstick that just came out. It was supposedly the fastest race broom in the world, but he would never find out because he hated flying.<p>

He was watching a little girl skip along ahead of her mother just to get reprimanded. He noticed the girl smiled, then skipped off again just to get too far ahead. He smiled slightly, enjoying his people watching. He had no sooner had that thought when all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. His eyes were drawn a little bit down the street towards the Leaky Cauldron entrance to the Alley. A beautiful woman in Muggle clothes was just stepping out of the building, looking all around her. She had long, wavy brunette hair, a perfect figure with a good sized bust and bum, as well as being the perfect height, probably coming up to about his neck.

She only took maybe a dozen steps before she stopped in her tracks. Her eyes immediately went straight to Theo and they locked with his. The two stood almost in a trance looking at one another. Somehow, he knew exactly who the woman was, even before she took that first step down Diagon Alley. The woman in question was none other than Hermione Granger, one-third of the golden trio, and the woman of his dreams. Literally. He'd been dreaming of her every night for the past nine months, since his eighteenth birthday.

In all fairness, it's not like he'd never dreamed of her before that, but it had definitely picked up in frequency. He'd talked to her before, never one for house rivalries. Apparently she wasn't either, because she never had any problem sitting next to him in their advanced classes and even partnering up a few times. They had always worked well together, but it hadn't ever consciously crossed his mind until the dreams started. Now, he pretty much thought about her all the time.

A door opening next to him snapped him out of his trance. He looked over to see his two best friends, Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, exiting the shop. One of them must have just told a joke, because they were both laughing. It all happened in just a split second, but by the time he looked back up to see where Hermione was, she was nowhere to be seen. His eyes flicked around a few times, but he couldn't find her.

He turned back to his friends and followed them to the robe shop. He needed some new robes. Not that he couldn't wear the same ones from the year before, but his mother felt he deserved them for making head boy. He wished he knew who head girl was, as they would have to share a dorm area. It was going to be a long year if it was someone that he couldn't stand.

—

Hermione stayed inside Flourish and Blotts' for awhile, hoping that Theo wouldn't still be standing out by the Quidditch shop. She needed her books for school anyway, but she had hoped to get those last so she could wander around the book store before having to go home. Oh, well. It took her no time at all to pick out her school books, so she decided to meander through the history books.

It had been awhile since she'd had a book for recreational reading, and while at one time she would have enjoyed spell books, or books on the dark arts, now she just wanted to learn as much about wizarding history as possible. For some reason, that seemed very important.

There was quite a bit that she didn't know about wizarding history and the pure blood traditions, so she would look it up. She was hoping that somewhere along the way, she would find out what all of her dreams about Theodore Nott meant. She hardly even thought about it as she plucked a book off the shelf and added it to her stack. She hadn't recognized the cover so just assumed she hadn't read it. It was from the right section of the store and she didn't feel like looking too closely.

She paid for her books at the front register and shrunk them down to be placed in her bag. She didn't bother to sort them, just made sure they were stacked when she dropped them in there. It was as she was leaving the shop that she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked up to see Theodore Nott, Draco Malfoy, and Blaise Zabini headed toward the shop she just came out of. She needed to pass them to get to the other shops she needed to go to, and decided that it wouldn't kill her to walk near them.

Just as she was walking past them, she felt a jolt straight to her core. It made her gasp, causing both pain and pleasure. She didn't realize that she'd stopped walking, but only took a moment to recover and, refusing to look behind her, walked off to her destination: the Apothecary.

—

Theo stopped short when Hermione walked past him and his friends. It was like he was hyper-aware of her presence, feeling it all the way down into his bones. With the hyper-awareness came a jolt of painful pleasure through his body, making him hard instantly. He was frozen in place for a minute before Draco's voice cut through his thoughts.

"You alright there, mate?" His awareness of his surroundings came back all at once. He turned to look for Hermione, but once again, she'd managed to disappear. He turned back to where his friends were standing, to see them looking rather concerned for his sanity.

"Yeah. Let's just go." He led the way into the book store, barely listening to Draco and Blaise as they whispered behind him.

"Was that Granger?" Draco seemed surprised.

"I think it was. When did she get hot?" Blaise was equally as surprised by the now beautiful brunette. Well, Theo had thought she was pretty before, but apparently no one else had noticed her.

"She didn't look like that last year." Draco would know, she'd been tortured in his mansion.

"I wonder if she'd be interested in going out with me." Blaise had a smirk on his face that just didn't sit well with Theo. With a grimace, he turned to look at his best friends.

"Leave her alone, guys. If she wanted to talk to any of us, she would have stopped just now." Theo looked them both in the eye so that they knew he was serious about them backing off. They both held up their hands in surrender, acknowledging that they knew what he was getting at. The three of them dropped the conversation and went about getting the rest of their school supplies.

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><p><em>AN: Please review. I appreciate each and every one of them, and it gives me a reason to continue writing._


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I've been working a lot, and am going to be going back to college in January. Once that happens, I really won't be able to update as much as I'd like. For now, I will do my best to update weekly. Here's chapter 3 of 'The Union'._

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><p>Hermione had missed the Hogwarts Express. She hadn't realized how good it felt to step aboard the train until she knew that it was her last trip to Hogwarts. She wasted no time in finding the car at the end of the train. It was about four times the size as the other cars, being reserved for the Head Boy and Girl. She used a bit of magic to get her trunk in the rack above the seat she sat in, and settled in to look out the window for the next several hours.<p>

She knew that she was supposed to have a meeting with Headmistress McGonnagall and the Head Boy, but no one was around, so she was resigned to wait in lonely silence. She had no sooner had that thought then she heard the door to the car slide open. She didn't even need to look to know who it was. She could tell by her body's reaction. Theodore Nott had just stepped into the room.

She tried to force her body not to tense up, but knew she failed. He took slow, deliberate steps over to where she was sitting, and proceeded to take his time with loading his trunk into the overhead without using magic. The little bit of exertion caused his muscles to ripple underneath the skin-tight Muggle shirt that he was wearing to be able to walk through King's Cross Station without causing a stir; the movement also caused his scent to intensify and envelope her. She took in a deep breath and pleasure shot through her. She had to stifle a moan, but knew that Theo had to have heard it anyway.

After his little show, he sat in the seat directly across from her. He took to blatantly staring at her, clearly waiting for some sort of acknowledgment on her part. To her credit, Hermione didn't disappoint.

"Hello, Theo." She offered a tentative smile, never having felt nervous around the quiet Slytherin before. With a nod at her words, Theo smiled handsomely at the brunette witch, causing that strange pain-pleasure to once again shoot through her. It took everything in her power not to gasp, instead viciously biting down on her lip. Theo, always the gentleman, didn't acknowledge the obvious effect he had on her, but he could definitely tell, as he felt it too.

"Hello, Hermione. I can't say I'm surprised to see you in this cabin." Hermione blushed at his assessment. She wasn't exactly surprised to see him either, that was just her luck anyhow. The two passed part of the train ride chatting mindlessly, attempting to ignore the effect they had on one another, and renewing the tentative friendship that they'd sort of had before. They always got along alright anyway. Both of their heads snapped to attention, looking at the door to the cabin that was now open and admitting the Headmistress of Hogwarts: Professor McGonnagall.

"Miss Granger. Mr. Nott." The older woman nodded her head at each in turn, closing the door behind her to begin telling them their duties. Having been a prefect, Hermione figured that the same duties would pertain to being Head Girl. Oh, how wrong she was.

Professor McGonnagall proceeded to explain that the two of them would be sharing housing quarters, which was expected, that their personal responsibilities were to help the younger students whenever they were needed, also completely expected, and to show a united front of Slytherin-Gryffindor for everyone to see and accept that war changes people, that, while extremely cliché, was also not completely unexpected. The unexpected part came when Professor McGonnagall asked Theo to please step out of the compartment and perhaps sit with his friends for the remainder of the trip. Theo nodded slightly, not liking the idea of leaving Hermione. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but chose to ignore the feeling and find Draco and Blaise instead.

McGonnagall waited for Theo to close the door to the compartment before saying another word. The two young people's eyes locked for a brief moment, neither of them understanding the spark they both felt as they did this. It was another few seconds after they heard the Head Boy's feet walk away from the door that the headmistress finally spoke.

"Miss Granger, how are you feeling?" The older professor had always had a soft spot for the intelligent young woman, more so now that they'd fought along side one another during war. The fact that one of her favorite instructors cared so much caused Hermione's eyes to turn glassy.

"Different." It was quite the understatement to say the least. Everything was different now after all. She was having strange feelings for Theo; that was different. She no longer had Harry and Ron by her side; that was different. She was going back to a school that had been a battle ground just a few short months ago; that was different. Everything was just different.

"That's to be expected, Miss Granger. I imagine it feels as if your best friends deserted you," okay, she was going for the lack of Harry and Ron. That was something she actually didn't mind talking about compared to everything else," but they haven't. Those boys love you so very much, school was just never something for them. Now, granted, I would have loved to see them both return to finish their education, but I don't fault either of them for choosing the path that they did."

Hermione nodded in agreement. She didn't blame either of them for wanting to do something that was so important to them. She herself would probably have chosen her dream job over returning to the school. That was largely due to the fact that the school, in her mind anyway, was still a battle ground where she'd lost so many of the people that she cared about. She had to take a fortifying breath to even speak, having let her mind run away with her to places she'd rather not think about.

"Yes, Professor. I understand what they did, but I still don't like that they won't be here for what should be our final year together." There, that sounded awfully diplomatic. Now Professor McGonnagall would never know that she wasn't really listening to her. That was very unlike her, but she was having trouble concentrating on anything except thoughts of Theo anymore.

"That's perfectly alright, Miss Granger. If you should ever need to speak to someone, my door will always be open to you. Alternately, if you find you are uncomfortable speaking with me about anything, Ginevra Weasley would be more than willing to speak with you on any matter." The older witch tried to comfort the younger one, but Hermione really didn't care much about anything at the moment.

"Thank-you, Professor." With a last stern nod in Hermione's direction, the other woman walked out of the train compartment and up to where the engineer was driving the train, leaving a slightly annoyed Hermione Granger behind. She could have been talking to Theo that whole time! With a sigh, she noted that they were almost to Hogwarts and changed into her school robes before they arrived. She didn't see Theo again until that night, when they were to stay in their rooms together for the first time.

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><p><em>AN: Please review. This story took a lot more effort to both get started, and continue writing than most of my work. Please be gentle._


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